If you follow us on Facebook or Twitter, you probably saw our posts seeking items to furnish an apartment for a foster youth named Jeremy*. 18 year-old Jeremy is one of the first foster youth to enter a new kind of specialized foster home program CCS has developed. Jeremy is polite, helpful, and smart and for the past few years, he has been living in a Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility. While this residential facility provided Jeremy with the vital treatment and support he needed, it impeded him from having a foster family or being involved in the community. Fortunately, Jeremy excelled in this residential setting and recently became ready to live with a family once more! But placing Jeremy in a foster home is not simple.
Foster youth who stay in residential facilities, like Jeremy, tend to have a history that looks bad on paper and it can scare off potential foster parents. Plus, they require such a high level of support and attention that traditional foster homes are not equipped to serve them so these youth typically remain in these facilities. When a youth is cleared for release but has to stay in a residential facility because there is nowhere else for him to go, the child can lose motivation, revert back to old behaviors and/or pick up new behaviors. CCS believes that every child deserves to have a family and be part of the community so, when Amerigroup (who oversees the healthcare of Georgia’s foster children) approached CCS about partnering with us to develop specialized foster homes that will serve these most difficult cases, we jumped at the opportunity to provide Jeremy and youth like him with the opportunity to be typical teenagers. It is CCS and Amerigroup’s goal to help these youth continue progressing and provide them with lasting relationships, instead of a rotating staff of clinicians.
We intend to reach this goal by setting up homes for these youth with foster parents who we have trained specifically to care for their youth’s specialized needs. We have asked these foster parents not to work so that they can give the youth their full and constant attention. With support from Amerigroup and the Department of Family and Children Services, CCS will cover rent, living expenses and pay the foster parents a salary. CCS will also pull from many of our programs to provide intensive support to the youth and foster parent(s). One of our SOAR Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention Specialists will meet with the youth and foster parent(s) three times a week to help reinforce positive behavior and decrease negative behavior. A life coach from our STEP program will work with the youth to reach his/her goals toward independence. The foster homes will also be provided with weekly case management meetings, where our staff will brainstorm solutions to any issues that may arise, and 24/7 on call support.
It is because of our specialized programs that CCS was selected to be the first foster care agency in Georgia to provide these intensive support foster homes. We are excited for the privilege of allowing Jeremy and foster youth like him to live independently and be involve in the community. Now that he is out of residential care, Jeremy has plans to join the Boys and Girls Club and take karate lessons; we are thrilled that we get to help him achieve his goals.
There are more foster youth like Jeremy who are ready for a home and family of their own. We already have two others who are waiting to be placed in a home but we need more foster parents! If you are interested in working as a professional foster parent in our modification of traditional foster homes, please contact Anne Sanders at asanders@ccsgeorgia.org or 770-469-6226.
*The foster youth’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
Creative Community Services, Inc. 